Titled "May You Live in Interesting Times", the exhibition is curated by Ralph Rugoff and will take place from 11 May to 24 November 2019. The President of La Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, and the curator of the 58th International Art Exhibition, Ralph Rugoff, met the press at Ca’ Giustinian to launch the Biennale Arte 2019, which will take place from May 11th to November 24th 2019 (Preview May 8th, 9th and 10th) at the Giardini and the Arsenale, as well as around other venues in Venice.
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No doubt, Ralph Rugoff's "May You Live in Interesting Times" will include self referential and reflecting artworks of precarious aspects of modern reality, including the various pressures that key traditions and relationships within the “post-war order” are facing. It is important, however, to note early that art often struggles to meaningfully influence the realm of politics, even if "political art" sets that in its sights. For example, Art fails to stem the continuing rise of nationalist movements and authoritarian governments, and nor can it aid the suffering of the tragically displaced people worldover, whose numbers now represent almost one percent of the world’s entire population.
Ralph Rugoff explained his choice as follows:
At a moment when the digital dissemination of fake news and 'alternative facts' is corroding political discourse and the trust on which it depends, it is worth pausing whenever possible to reassess our terms of reference. In this case it turns out that there never was any such “ancient Chinese curse,” despite the fact that Western politicians have made reference to it in speeches for over a hundred years. It is an ersatz cultural relic, and yet for all its fictional status, it has had real rhetorical effects in significant public exchanges. At once suspect and rich in meaning, this kind of uncertain artefact suggests potential lines of exploration that are worth pursuing at present, especially when the “interesting times” it evokes seem to be with us once again. Hence the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will be titled after a counterfeit curse.
President Paolo Baratta stated:
In 1998, on this very same date, July 16, the reformed Biennale appointed Harald Szeemann as first curator of the new Biennale. This choice was suggested by the very history of the institution. The Art Exhibition traditionally resulted from the coming together of several exhibitions, each one with its own theme and curators. In 1980, one of these sections was titled Aperto (Open), a name that encapsulated a different atmosphere of openness to the world; this was also curated by Szeemann, among others. It is unsurprising that his first Biennale in 1999 was titled dAPERTutto (APERTO overALL). The germ of the 1980 exhibition thus grew into the International exhibition.
ABOUT THE ITALIAN PAVILLON
Finally, Italy has also unveiled the names of the trio chosen by Farronato for the Venice Biennale 2019. Don't miss our articles Milovan Farronato: the new curator of the Italian Pavilion for the Art Venice Biennal 2019!
Four months after the appointment of Milovan Farronato as curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019, finally the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities, Alberto Bonisoli, has dissolved the privacy and announced the three artists selected by the curator who will represent Italy at the next Biennial.
They are Enrico David (Ancona, 1966), Liliana Moro (Milan, 1961) and the late Chiara Fumai (Rome, 1978 - Bari, 2017), who died last year. There was no big surprise with the names, at least for Fumai and Moro, who were largely predictable. Beyond the choice of artists, very little other information is divulged in the release. More details on the artistic and exhibition project of the Italian Pavilion will be provided in the usual press conference next spring, but already some words from Minister Bonisoli, the commissioner for the Italian pavilion, Federica Galloni, and the curator Farronato illuminate some reasons behind the choices. Bonisoli said:
Internationality, modernity, creativity are the words that will characterize the project of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, thanks to the contribution of these three protagonists of art, whose works will give life to an original and innovative exhibition under the expert guide of a curator of their age. Therefore, we focus on artists with a strong international vocation in keeping with Farronato's curatorial profile. "The objectives of support, promotion and enhancement of the Italian art of the Directorate General of Contemporary Architecture and Urban Peripherals that I direct" states the Italian Pavilion Commissioner Federica Galloni, "are fully represented by the three artists chosen for the next Italian participation in Venice, who will be able to transmit depth of vision and quality of research to the international public .
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